COVENTRY have acted to publicly bring a conclusion to their recent dispute with officialdom ahead of their final Elite League meeting of the season tonight.

The last month has been beset with controversy with the Buildbase Bees highly critical of a chain of events which resulted in them racing against Belle Vue with only five riders.

They were prevented from using Danish double-upper Peter Kildemand having been told that, having been declared out of the Coventry team across a weekend, he had since been signed by Poole.

Kildemand stated that he had never agreed to join the Pirates and he never rode for the club although his appearances anywhere since early July have been severely limited by a shoulder injury.

But Bees had issued two strongly worded statements on their website giving the timeline of events from their perspective, and it has now emerged that representatives of the club attended a meeting at BSPA headquarters on Tuesday.

The outcome of that meeting was never going to change the situation of the club missing out on a play-off place this year – which was far from solely down to that Belle Vue meeting in any case – but owner Avtar Sandhu issued a measured statement yesterday.

He said: “We do not agree with the version of events that was presented to us, we were not happy with the decisions that were taken and we still find the entire situation totally unacceptable; however, we have decided to draw a line under the matter.

“We have not reached the play-offs which is a disappointment to all of us and made harder to accept as this was due to off-the-track influences rather than on-track performance.

“Our team had some bad luck this year; however, we had great attendances, a roller-coaster of a season and some World Class additions to our team. We would like to thank all our fans for the huge support you have given us, our growing list of sponsors and of course the riders both in the full squad and those that helped us sometimes at short notice.

“I would like to congratulate all the teams who have made the play-offs including Poole, but in particular I would like to single out King’s Lynn who managed to reach the upper level in its first Elite League season.”

It is King’s Lynn themselves who provide the opposition tonight (7.30pm) although, as if to sum up the season, Coventry’s prospects of signing off from Elite League competition for 2011 are hampered by the absence of Emil Sayfutdinov, with no facility available to replace him.

Sayfutdinov is racing in Russia and boss Alun Rossiter has clarified that the rider would have attempted to secure a release had tonight’s match been crucial to the play-off race – but his position is complicated by the fact that his father is President of his Russian club, and his brother is the coach.

Whether Sayfutdinov will be seen in Coventry colours again this season in the forthcoming matches against Birmingham and Wolverhampton remains to be seen and it could well be that they call upon some of their former favourites again for those Midland battles.

Meanwhile, Bees’ remaining five regular riders will need to be at their very best tonight, or be hopeful that King’s Lynn are taking things rather easier ahead of the play-offs next week!